20 Jan 2025

I’m a youth pastor and I took a day off. Am I a sinner now?

By Ronald|2025-01-07T10:50:05-08:00January 20th, 2025|Leadership|0 Comments

Let’s start with a confession (because we’re all about those): I took a day off. I know, shocking, right? Somewhere, there’s a well-meaning youth worker whispering, “But what about the students?” Don’t worry—they’ll survive without you for one day.

Taking time for self-care in ministry can feel downright rebellious. But here’s the truth: self-care isn’t selfish—it’s holy. Yes, holy. Let’s talk about why prioritizing yourself isn’t just okay—it’s essential.

Why Self-Care Matters

1. It Prevents Burnout

Youth ministry isn’t for the faint of heart (or the short of patience). The endless stream of events, parent emails, and late-night texts can leave you feeling like a wrung-out sponge. Self-care is how you recharge before the burnout sets in, leaving you emotionally and spiritually fried.

2. It Makes You Better at Your Job

When you’re rested and recharged, you’re a better youth pastor. You’ll find more patience for that kid who keeps flipping water bottles mid-sermon and more creativity for engaging lessons. Self-care equips you to serve with energy and joy—not just survival mode.

3. It Sets a Good Example

Your students are watching you, and they’re learning from your habits. By modeling healthy boundaries, you’re teaching them that it’s okay to say no, to rest, and to care for their own well-being. That’s a lesson they’ll carry for life.

Practical Self-Care Tips for Youth Workers

If you’re wondering where to start, here’s a cheat sheet:

1. Schedule Rest

Treat your rest time like a non-negotiable meeting with the most important person you know—because it is. Whether it’s a full day, a few hours, or an unplugged evening, carve out space to recharge and guard it fiercely.

2. Set Boundaries

Repeat after me: It’s okay to say no. You don’t have to be at every event or take on every task. Saying no to one thing is saying yes to your health and longevity in ministry.

3. Delegate Like a Pro

You’re not the ministry superhero. (Sorry, but capes are out of style anyway.) Train your volunteers, empower your team, and let others share the load.

4. Pursue Hobbies

What do you love that has nothing to do with ministry? Reading? Baking? Kayaking? Whatever it is, make time for it. Life isn’t all lock-ins and sermon prep.

5. Invest in Relationships

Surround yourself with people who refresh your soul—friends, family, mentors. These connections remind you that you’re more than just a youth pastor.

6. Prioritize Your Spiritual Practices

Your relationship with God is the foundation of your ministry. Spend time in prayer, read your Bible, and worship without it being tied to planning your next talk.

7. Seek Professional Help When Needed

There’s no shame in getting extra help. If you’re struggling emotionally, mentally, or spiritually, a counselor or therapist can offer tools to get back on track.

Self-Care Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All

Here’s the thing: what refreshes someone else might make you cringe. Love hiking? Hit the trails. Hate it? That’s cool—stay home and watch a movie. Experiment and find what genuinely recharges you.

The Big Picture

Taking a day off doesn’t make you a sinner—it makes you human. Self-care isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity for sustainable ministry. By caring for yourself, you’re better equipped to care for others and fulfill your calling.

So, go ahead: take that day off. Pursue that hobby. Build those relationships. And for goodness’ sake, stop feeling guilty about it. Your ministry (and your sanity) will thank you.

And hey, if you need more encouragement (or just want to hear some great stories about burnout and surviving it), check out the video conversation I had with Josh Boldman, Derry Prenket, and Todd Pearage [You can watch it here].

10 Jun 2024

Oh No It’s Youth Movie Night!

By Ronald|2024-06-10T09:08:40-07:00June 10th, 2024|Youth Ministry Ideas|13 Comments

I’ve seen it a lot.

It’s the summer. You’ve got a lot on your plate. You’re scrambling to add just one more event to the calendar. Or you have intentionally planned a chill event after a week-long mission trip.

What’s easier than putting on a movie and microwaving popcorn for your students?

Very little!

But let’s be real, sometimes a harmless movie night can turn into A LOT of angry emails. Especially if you’ve got hypervigilant parents who think Veggie Tales is a little too mainstream.

So, what to do?

Well, first, check out this movie list. It’s not conclusive, but it can get you started! Picking the right movie is KEY!

Pick a Movie

Are you doing a faith-based movie? An animated sing-a-long? An action or sci-fi flick? Great! Have fun with it! Then, I go check out a website I use to see what’s in a movie. Common Sense Media is my go-to, but you can search just about any movie by putting it into Google with “how many cuss words does _____” It will get you far and save you a lot of trouble.

Watch it First

I know, you’re busy. But if you want to put students before a movie, you will want to watch it first. Don’t slack here. Put it on while you catch up on emails or clean the youth room. If something DOES come up, you want to be able to say, “Yes, I watched the movie and prepared students for that.”

Plan it Out

Does the movie push the boundaries? Send an email. Tell parents WHY you want to watch that movie. Explain what difficult scene their students will see. Tie it into your teaching for the month. Prepare and communicate. That way, you’ve got parents sorted, and no one is surprised. Besides, an extra 30 minutes of work can make you look like a rockstar who totally didn’t just put a movie night on the calendar to have an easy week.

Have Some Games!

DYM is full of resources you can use for your movie night. There are tons of movie-themed games in the DYM store. Go see them all! And with a little bit of effort, your low-key event turns into a great hang with your students!

Get a License

Ugh. LEGAL STUFF!? Yeah, I know. Most youth pastors think you can just watch a movie and pray for forgiveness. But you actually DO have to get a license to show a movie. Unless you know the owner of the movie’s copyright. Just where are you doing youth ministry anyway? Head to this website to grab a license. Put it in your budget. The lawyer, a deacon, and the head of the youth committee will thank you.

Any other suggestions? I’d love to hear them!

5 Oct 2023

4 Strategic Focuses this Fall

By Justin Knowles|2023-09-21T08:42:10-07:00October 5th, 2023|Leadership|0 Comments

Goals should be reachable on strategy but big enough where God needs to move fir it to happen. As leaders we can do our part by planning and creating strategies on how to be effective. Over the summer our ministry had decided to focus on a few main areas in our ministry to give a great start to the fall. We created a playbook which has our focuses laid out in detail per campus and a month into fall it’s awesome to see it in action. Is it perfect no. But provided a clear direction.

4 focuses:

1st Wednesdays – This is nothing new to Wednesdays but we wanted to get ahead. Part of a great event is the planning and promotion. If we want students to invite friends but we don’t have our plans in order early, how would they invite them to something they don’t know about. I feel one of the biggest downfalls of youth ministries is their lack of getting ahead and it causes people to do a bunch of last minute planning… which is never the best result. And getting ahead now allows for margin later.

Rosters and small groups – We had two focuses. For larger campuses groups can get too big. So we focus on getting groups to a 2:12 (leader/student) ratio. Multiplying groups off to make smaller ones means more intentional discipleship. And for smaller campuses, more options of groups. If a student comes and there is only one group for guys because of the size, and they don’t like it, where do they go? They go home. We are having a huge focus on being highly aware of how big our groups are in order to create more room for students who are coming.

Youth sections – We launched youth sections for connections on Sundays. We do not have any weekend services for youth. We want them in service in corporate worship or we want them serving on teams on the weekend. Our church has had a ton of new families and youth sections let them know there is something amazing happening on Wednesdays for the community and discipleship of our youth.

Schools – I know this is a youth ministry staple. I don’t know about others, but CA schools are like prisons. Feels impossible to get on, but it isn’t. Post Covid, we lost all connections and we are focusing on getting them back and being in school. I know that not every student will come to SCY but every student can know at that school what SCY is about.

Is this all ground breaking stuff? Nope. But I’d like this something we have prayed about, something metrics have revealed to us, and something we are striving for as a ministry in hopes to see Jesus move through us and our amazing leaders.

Justin

28 Sep 2023

Creating a Website for Your Leaders

By Justin Knowles|2023-09-21T08:36:49-07:00September 28th, 2023|Leadership|14 Comments

No matter the size of your church, we all have one thing in common – we want our small group leaders to win in discipling the youth in our churches!

Though there are many things that can get in the way of this, I want to highlight one: distributing valuable content to group leaders.

You can email a link to YouTube videos or podcasts on helping your leaders grow or engage student culture, share a quick blurb to them on Instagram about what God is doing in your ministry, or shoot them a text on what to expect that night. Let’s be honest though – the vast amount of information can become a tad overwhelming if everything was over email (Do your leaders even read those?), text, or social media.

Whether you have five volunteer leaders or have to manage a hundred plus leaders, we can all agree that we don’t want to overwhelm and overload our leaders. Rather, our job is to SIMPLIFY the process for them.

The way we decided to simplify the process for our youth leaders across our 9-campus youth ministry is to build a website that has everything a leader in our youth ministry may need.

Why A Website?

If your church utilizes G Suite (Google Suite) you can (and should) create a website for your leaders to be informed of what’s going on in your ministry. Here are three reasons why:

It’s easy to set up.

Literally. I set it up in one day. Just make sure you’re logged into your Google account and go to https://sites.google.com/new to create a page.

It’s easy to manage.

You can post YouTube videos, upload videos from your phone to encourage your group leaders, share documents from Google Drive, embed podcasts and Vimeo videos – and so much more!

It’s adaptable.

Need a page with training videos? You can do that. Need to post some announcements with graphics? That’s possible, too. Need to have pre-registration for an upcoming event? It’s easily set up through Google Forms and posted to your website. Need a llama for tonight’s petting zoo? Sorry, you’re on your own for that…

Set-up and Managment

You may wonder – how do I do this? What does it take to do this? Glad you asked. Here’s what we’ve learned in setting ours up:

Get G Suite.

https://gsuite.google.com/ – just do it! It’ll be worth it because it already includes so much such as email, sharable drive, webcasting, and so many other features that I have yet to use.

Get a domain.

Honestly, this is what I know the LEAST about and in fact is OPTIONAL. For example, our church as a whole uses the shortlink “move.sc/” to easily move our people to certain things (marriage, men and women events, start a group, camp registration, etc.). We utilized this to easily send our group leaders to a website to access everything they need (see it at move.sc/scyleader). Again, this is optional and I know nothing about it – so have your tech-savvy communications director or website designer help you out. If you skip this step, simply send your leaders a “published link” provided from the G Suite Website application.

Load everything into an organized, shareable folder.

Put everything you want on the website into one well-organized folder and make sure the sharing preferences are set to “anyone with the link can view.” Keeping it organized will help you in the long-run. Ours is organized by year and series (i.e. Website Folder > 2019 > Own It Series). The sharing preference mode makes your leaders able to view but not edit your file or access your drive. They’re still able to print and add it to their own Google Drive (if they want to).

Prepare beforehand.

We currently organize our series into 3 weeks (typically). All content is prepared beforehand so that as we enter INTO the series everything is prepped and ready to go. We make discussion guides for JH and HS, a video with a preview of that week’s topic, a host guide and teaching video (see those at move.sc/youthhost). We clearly date everything (especially file names, i.e. “HS Guide_FOR_Love Your Enemies_8.28.19” which is “Guide Name_Series Name_Topic Name_Date of Teaching”) and have the topic of discussion clearly communicated.

Keep it up-to-date and with new content.

The most important thing you can do for your leaders is to keep the site up to date on events, teaching materials, and any other dated content. If it’s old, take it down. If it’s not a series you’ve begun, simply use the “Hide From Navigation” in the individual page’s side-panel menu. In fact, make it easy on yourself – find a page format that works for you and stick to it for every series. Simply “Duplicate Page” in the page’s side-panel menu and change the content.

In fact, challenge yourself to put up a new training video once a month (easily done via your phone, uploaded to your drive or YouTube) and utilize Google Forms to receive “graded answers” from your leaders based on the video’s content. This way you know if they may struggle to grasp a concept or perhaps you didn’t communicate the topic well enough (be humble enough to admit this).

Get feedback.

If it’s hard to navigate, your leaders won’t want to use it. Get feedback from them as you’re getting it set up so that it can be an amazing tool for them to discipline their group. Don’t create it to the point that you think it’s awesome – create it to the point that your leaders think it is.

Other Uses

You could always use the website feature for other things, such as:

Parent website
Camp registration or interest list
Website for your youth to visit (dorky videos, memes, encouragement – whatever may gather them or their friends)
Personal blog or vlog

There are a ton more features and possibilities that are better left discovered by yourself.

The last thing I’ll say is this: When designing your site, always remember: simplify, simplify, SIMPLIFY. Your leaders will love you for it.

Justin

7 Aug 2023

Starting the Fall Off Right!

By Ronald|2023-08-07T08:55:53-07:00August 7th, 2023|Youth Ministry Ideas|3 Comments

Fall is finally upon us, and if you’re anything like me, you’re buzzing with excitement for what this new season holds for your student ministry. There’s something inherently invigorating about the start of the school year – new faces, fresh enthusiasm, and endless opportunities for growth in faith. So, how do we harness this energy and create an unforgettable fall kick-off for our students? Let’s dive into some tips to help you make the most of this exciting time!

Seize the Moment: Plan a Memorable Kick-Off

The start of the school year is a golden opportunity to create a memorable kick-off event. Whether you’re dedicating an entire evening or even an entire month to the kick-off, make it a big deal! Organize engaging activities, games, and maybe even a theme that resonates with your students. This sets the tone for the rest of the season and builds anticipation.

Set the Course: Reset Goals and Cast Vision

As you welcome both new and returning students, take the time to reset your goals and cast a clear vision for the year ahead. Ensure that everyone in your student ministry knows the ‘why’ behind what you’re striving for. This could involve sharing your ministry’s purpose, goals, and values during the kick-off event. A strong sense of purpose can fuel enthusiasm and commitment among your students.

Facilitate Connections: Highlight Opportunities to Engage

Fall is all about restarting and building new routines, so emphasize the various opportunities for students to connect and get involved. During the kick-off, make it crystal clear how they can plug into small groups, service projects, worship teams, and any other activities your ministry offers. Provide sign-up sheets or online forms to streamline the process and ensure everyone can find their place in the community.

Capture the Magic: Document the Kick-Off

In the whirlwind of events, it’s easy to forget to capture the special moments. Make an effort to document your fall kick-off with plenty of photos and even videos. Not only do these mementos serve as heartwarming reminders for the students, but they can also be wonderful to look back on as they move up or graduate in the future. Plus, sharing these memories on social media can help build a buzz for your ministry and attract even more students.

Nurture Lasting Relationships

Remember, a successful fall kick-off isn’t just about the event itself; it’s about building lasting relationships. Encourage your leadership team to be intentional about forming connections with both new and returning students. Whether it’s through one-on-one conversations, mentoring programs, or casual hangouts, creating a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere can help students feel valued and supported.

So there you have it, fellow youth pastors – a roadmap to creating an amazing fall kick-off for your student ministry! This is a season of renewed energy and eager hearts, and by implementing these strategies, you can set the stage for a year full of growth, community, and spiritual development.

Remember, each student who walks through your doors is on a unique journey, and your role is to guide, encourage, and inspire them as they navigate their faith. Have an incredible fall kick-off, and may this season be one of transformation and abundant blessings for both you and your students.

Need a game to kickstart your fall?

Get your group up and active in this classic game that will have students grouping up and performing festive actions.

Have your students up and milling around. You will show a number and a school-themed action on the screen. Participants then need to get in groups (aka “clumps”) that match the number and perform the action displayed. If you play it as an elimination game, the last group to form, or without enough people to form the group, is out.

Click here to download and play!

1 May 2023

A summertime prayer for youth pastors

By Ronald|2023-05-01T08:56:39-07:00May 1st, 2023|Youth Pastor Life|23 Comments

As we approach the summer season, I want to take a moment to encourage you in your ministry. You have been called to shepherd the hearts and minds of young people, and that is no small task. But, with God’s help and your dedication, I am confident that you will make a significant impact on the lives of those you serve.

As you prepare for a summer of activity, it is essential to remember that you are not alone. God is with you every step of the way, and He will give you the strength and wisdom you need to lead your youth group effectively. Take time to pray and seek His guidance as you plan your activities and events.

Remember that your ultimate goal is not just to keep your young people busy, but to help them grow in their faith and deepen their relationship with Jesus Christ. So, as you plan your activities, keep that in mind. Ask yourself, “How can this event help my students connect with God and each other?”

I know that this summer may bring some challenges, but I also believe that it will be a time of tremendous growth and transformation for your youth group. So, keep pressing forward, even when it feels difficult. Trust in God’s plan for your ministry, and He will use your efforts to bring about His kingdom work.

So let me offer this prayer over you:

Father God, we come before you today with humble hearts, asking for your guidance and wisdom as we begin this summer of activity with our youth groups. We pray that you would bless our efforts and use them for your glory. Give us strength and perseverance when we feel weary or discouraged, and fill our hearts with your love and grace. We ask that you would use this summer to bring about transformation in the lives of our young people, and that they would come to know you in a deeper way. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

Remember, fellow youth pastors, you are doing important kingdom work, and we are in this together. Let us continue to support and encourage one another as we serve the Lord and His people. May God bless you and your ministry abundantly this summer.

Hey, want to make some more time for yourself and your summer? Check out this free training hosted by DYM! Click the photo to sign up and learn how to reclaim your time and thrive in ministry on May 9th at 10 AM PST!

6 Mar 2018

Who’s Going To Take Your Place When You Are Done?

By Christopher Wesley|2018-03-02T09:33:32-08:00March 6th, 2018|Leadership, Uncategorized|0 Comments

I never thought I would leave my last church. Seriously, I thought I’d never retire. But, God had different plans and after a decade plus of ministry I was gone. (more…)

26 Sep 2017

5 Skills That Every Youth Minister Needs To Develop If They Want To Continue To Grow

By Christopher Wesley|2017-09-20T07:07:22-07:00September 26th, 2017|Training|1 Comment

I’ve never been a fan of the Duties Assigned By The Pastor blurb that appears on most youth ministry job descriptions. It’s just a reminder that youth ministers are expected to do everything.

There is nothing wrong with being a team player, but a line like that perpetuates the problem most youth ministers have, which is (more…)

20 Jun 2017

Who Are You Really Trying To Reach?

By Christopher Wesley|2017-06-20T04:32:50-07:00June 20th, 2017|Leadership|0 Comments

Who are you trying to reach as a ministry? Are you just going after the teens who are already there? You know the ones who have bought in? How are you going after the kids who don’t see your ministry as an option?

Planning over the top events and working hard on an efficient ministry structure is crucial, but to reach the teens that need to be in your ministry requires: (more…)

6 Jun 2017

3 Challenges For Your Team This Summer

By Christopher Wesley|2017-06-05T19:22:45-07:00June 6th, 2017|Volunteers|0 Comments

In between all the camps and vacations, most of us take the summer to evaluate, change and improve the ministries we lead. While looking at content and reconfiguring your systems are key, it’s also important to take things up a notch with your volunteers.

That’s right, summer is a great time to challenge your team to step up to a new level. It’s an opportunity to expand your capacity as a leader and hit new goals. So, how do you challenge your team? Here are three you can give to your team this summer: (more…)